Video: Running apps and multitasking

Let's take a look at Multitasking in iOS 6. Multitasking allows you to leave multiple applications running, and quickly switch between them. This allows you to do things like start playing games exactly where you left off, leave GPS applications running in the background, or have music apps keep playing music while you perform other tasks on your device. Let's take a look at how this works. I have an app called Spotify on my iPhone. It's a popular streaming Internet music app. So, here on my iPhone, I can start some music playing, and once my music is playing, I can start doing other things on my phone while the music continues to play in the background.

Discover how to get the most out of your iPhone or iPod touch, from making calls, browsing the web, managing your time, and getting around town to taking notes, shooting photos, and listening to music. In this course, author Garrick Chow shows how to perform all of these tasks and more, and introduces the enhancements built into iOS 6, including enhanced language support and commands for Siri, shared photo streams, and the new Reply with Message feature for handling incoming calls. The course also includes hands-on demonstrations on how to accurately type and efficiently use finger gestures, and offers tips for personalizing the setup of the iPhone and iPod touch. An extensive section on troubleshooting helps when the occasional glitch happen.

Running apps and multitasking

Let's take a look at Multitasking in iOS 6.Multitasking allows you to leave multiple applications running, and quickly switch between them.This allows you to do things like start playing games exactly where you left off, leave GPS applications running in the background, or have music apps keep playing music while you perform other tasks on your device.Let's take a look at how this works.I have an app called Spotify on my iPhone. It's a popular streaming Internet music app.So, here on my iPhone, I can start some music playing, and once my music is playing, I can start doing other things on my phone while the music continues to play in the background.

I'll press my Home button.And maybe now I want to work on some email, or maybe I want to check the weather. (music playing)As you can hear, Spotify continues to play music the entire time.Now, so far, I've been switching between apps by pressing the Home button to return to the Home screen, and then tapping the app I want to run.But another way is to use the Multitasking bar.You invoke Multitasking by double-clicking the Home button.That opens the Multitasking bar at the bottom of the screen.Here you'll find the icons for all the apps you've most recently opened.

Just tap an app to switch back to it.For example, I'll tap Spotify and I can see the status or progress of the music that's currently playing, or in this case, I'll just pause it, or I can double-click the Home button again to go back to my mail, and it brings me back right where I left off.What you're going to find is that all your most recent apps are going to appear in the Multitasking bar, and you can access them by flicking the bar to the left and browsing through them.Multitasking also comes in handy when a call comes in, interrupting whatever important work you're doing at that time.For example, let's say I'm playing this game, and a call comes in.

Notice the game sort of gets visually shuffled back.I can answer the call, I can have my conversation, and when I hang up, the last app I was using, in this case this game, gets shuffled back to the front exactly where I left off.Now, this doesn't mean that every single program here is running in the background and eating up processing and battery power.First of all, apps have to be optimized by their creators to support Multitasking, but many app creators have already implemented this support.Also, the apps shown here in the Multitasking bar may still have to boot up from the beginning instead of where you left off if you haven't opened them in a while.

Your most recently used apps should always pick up where you left off though.Another use of the Multitasking bar is for quitting applications.Occasionally, you'll have an app that starts acting funny or not working properly, but since current apps are always running, you may have to force it to quit so you can reboot it.To do this, just hold your finger down on one of the apps in the Multitasking bar until the icons start to wiggle.Then tap the red close icon on the app you're having problems with to quit it.You can then close the Multitasking bar, and try starting the app up again by tapping its icon.The final features of the Multitasking bar I want to show you can be found by double-clicking the Home button to invoke Multitasking, and then flicking to the right, revealing music control buttons, which can control both your iPod musicand certain enabled apps like Spotify when they're running.

We'll look at more of these controls in the chapter on using the iPod part of your phone, but this is where you'll also find the Orientation Lock.Most applications are designed to rotate their displays when you rotate the phone.For example, if I open mail and cancel my new message, I can read my mail in both portrait and landscape orientation.But sometimes you don't want the content of an app to rotate.For example, if you like to read your iPhone in bed while lying on your side,you don't want the screen to rotate into Landscape mode.

So, just double-click the Home button to open the Multitasking bar, flick to the right, and tap the Orientation Lock button.That will lock all apps into Portrait mode.You can see the Orientation Lock icon at the top of your screen.Now, when I'm in mail and rotate the phone, the display remains in portrait mode.So, that's how Multitasking works on the iPhone and iPod touch.

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